My favorite sage once told me "better look out" else you won't "see" :-) This is a wanderer's wanderlust !!, an attempt to navigate through the omnipresent urban blindness, albeit without any kind compass, and yet, inadvertently and magically, stumble upon the ever elusive truth.

I was watching the video of Kolaveri Di closely. There is a reason why this song is a monster hit – its not just a great freaky song – but the video conveys fun. Shruti, Aniruddh, Aishwarya and Dhanush especially seem to be having a ball recording this song.

Just that joie de vivre should make this a viral. In these times, who does not want to live a little vicariously

my destiny and the story of my past are all screwed and completely waylaid….so is the future of the path that I am currently in….alas….eventually I fell in love with a beauty, and I thought things were eventually looking up (implied!!)…guess what….that was all fucked up as well!!)

I have started looking at ads with a more keener eye, especially their accompanying graphics.

I must admit, half of the creative guys must be smoking coke – how else do you explain photos of appalling stupidity associated with big brands. E.g. the one from Raymond below.

Look hard. Relevance of this image to Raymond? Where is the girl with the camera focusing? (If I understand her Line of Sight correctly – she is focusing on none of the 3 others)? Why are the girls more prominent in a men’s clothing ad? (and not like they are in a attention grabbing bikini or something)

Tuesday, December 06, 2011

In my complex we have two large basketball courts. Some evenings a girl of about 18-20, wears her skates ( the type with 4 wheels), plugs in her Ipod and she glides through the turf. She actually does gravity defying bends, almost a la ballet on ice.

Its mesmerising to see her. It suddenly gives me a feeling that anything is possible in life. It makes me want to do what I like. She inspires me, and she always always brings a smile in face and heart.

Now to illustrate my previous post, imagine this legendary National Geographic photo without the scarf. Would you focus on the face? (agreed the scarf is not black, but in my head any dark enough color would do!!)

A black scarf can so irrefutably make someone’s face stand out….its actually a brilliant fashion motif.

A face (beautiful or otherwise in the eyes of the beholder) will always stand out when shrouded in black – and thats true for Caucasians and Mongolians both.

Using a black scarf to hide one’s modesty (especially when used in a way where the face is displayed) is such a bad ploy, and it needs to be re-examined, if that is the goal of the black shroud in cultures !!

When you walk along the street, and a fatass urban junkie kicks a stray dog just for the pleasure of seeing him wimp – if that sight makes your heart and blood pound a little faster – welcome to the world of proprietary. Its a world where things are in black and white – you pretty much know that the other person has fucked up.

When you walk along the street, and you see a hairy hoary uncle wearing a sleeveless ganji, ensuring his 5 inch long underarm hair is sticking out and there for all to see – you cringe, well thats a judgement.

In both cases, ideally you want to have the advantage of the person’s context. Why is the fatass kicking the dog? Maybe because his girlfriend kicks his balls similarly to wake him up. Why is the hoary guy parading his underarm hair….maybe because he is compensating for the lack of enough hair on his bald “airstrip” head….he thinks women will swoon for his fertile hairility.

Get the drift…context is most times everything.

I am still fine with the “judger” not having context….but the man with properietary, but no context is as dangerous a lunatic. Makes me wonder what makes some of us so very puerile

I have been away from Bombay for only about 2 years now, but the cracks are beginning to show. As I was driving along the city during this visit, was amazed by how this city’s underbelly is gnawing at itself.

An example of this rabid degeneration of the city’s skylines and wall-lines. All across the city is littered with political posters of every ribald color (and don’t even get me started on political flags ). The depressing bit is that these posters are most tastelessly done, and the mug-shots – well someone needs to make those faces palatable. We all know most politico types are goons, but come on, don’t look like one, especially on a mug shot designed for your publicity.

And if you still don’t have a sense of how cancerous this malaise is, I suggest you walk any street on north of central mumbai and if you manage to find a 100 mt stretch without this nuisance, I shall be doggone.

And yes, we are on route to be a Shangai in 2015 …I so completely believe in that.

Saturday, December 03, 2011

As long as you allow the battle in your life to proceed, for you to have a desired goal, your life continues. The minute, we pause, we rest and we relax – we allow the Black Angel of Death to begin to leak in.

In Bombay, I am seeing this recurrent theme of competition.The city uses its economic architecture as a metaphor for all of life and its all shows.

Everything is dog eat dog here…and I mean every single thing. No one place does it stand out more meanly than in the case of toddlers and their parents.

Everything is measured and quantified. “My kid is 5 and he is already reading”, “Your has already learnt 2 ragas”, “your daughter has her arangetram at 8??”, “your son weighs 25 kgs at 6??”…and the list continues.

If you ask these same parents to describe their child’s individuality – they will be very hard pressed, at least most of them will be.

Somewhere in this modern race, we have forgotten that one of the key responsibilities as parents is to forge out (tarashna in hindi) his/her individuality.

I am more in awe of parents who tell me that their son at 6 has a great interest in cosmology (as someone I know actually does), than in knowing that someone’s daughter at 8 has started reading Mills and Boons.

By the time we are all 15, the kid who learnt to read faster would have normalised and his advantage thoroughly neutralised….versus the kid whose parents encouraged him to invest in his interest on cosmology – would have one strong passion in his arsenal.

I will sincerely advice those living in Bombay (currently), to go and have a a bite of a good Wada Pav daily. I promise you, once you are off this city, you will never ever find a good Bhaji Pav, Wada Pav combination.

Have a few every day, you never know when you have to leave this magical city

We were housed at Fortis Hospitals for the past 9 days. I must say that modern hospitals are the most mercenary types – and are in urgent need of some soul searching.

Fortis in Mulund has a great ICU, some good doctors, but general wards, out patient and the nurses leave so much to be desired.

The nurses are in the ratio of 3 to 50 beds. If thats not appalling enough, spare a thought for the fact that most of these 50 beds are occupied and almost all of these have patients with one or the other serious ailments.

These hospitals charge for everything from spirit, handwash, gauge and even the old traditional mercury thermometer. Would these not make more sense, if they were shared. Who uses a bale of cotton or a whole wrap of gauge.

These are charged at MRP. In a day 5 doctors visit us, and each visit is charged – all he comes and asks us – “all ok?” and then runs off.

I felt as if I was in a shop where every inch of skin is on sale. And to believe these buggers all started with a Hippocrates oath

For two days, we shared our ward with a raucous Sindhi mother-daughter duo. The hospital felt more like an auction house, than a place to rest and recuperate.

We sniggered and sneered at the loud garish ring tones, the intoned demands on the nurses and the always cringing kind of drone.

Then yesterday eventually we got chatting. It transpired that the daughter is 34 years old – she has a 7 year old daughter herself, and her husband who is 39 – had multiple renal failure about 6 weeks ago. Both his kidneys just went kaput.

After a short deliberation, and a protracted resistance from family, they decided that she would donate one of her kidneys to him.

The surgery happened on last Sun, about the same time when we had ours. The husband is still in the ICU.

My learning out of this, to have a big giant sized heart, couture is not a pre-requisite!!

(You can determine an approximate size of your heart by folding your fist!!)

(If you are prude, please stop reading beyond this point. Parental advisory . Prude? You? Maheshji – not you. We know you are the film-maker who has always crossed boundaries than respected any. The warning was meant for more well intentioned folks )

(In the one above, Mahesh Sir is staring hard at something unstoppable and immovable)

(In this one above, Mahesh Sir seals the deal on Big Boss 5. Mahesh Ji BTW, is the biggest boss!!)

Dear Mr. Bhatt, we now know you want to make a certain porn star called Sunny Leone star in Jism 2. For the dinosaur in the modern world, who missed this “breaking news”, it was all over googleland and lalaland.

But those are minor distractions. My real point of this letter was to tell you, Mahesh Sir…why don’t we rope in Pamela Ji also onto the enterprise. And then instead of Jism 2, lets make a bilingual – English and Hindi….release both worldwide. Call the English one a very dickensian “Tale of Two Titties” and the Hindi one “Do Babloan ki hain yeh kahani”. (We can get either Asha to croon the title number for Hindi, and Workshop to do their Bunty and Bubli for the English one)

If you dont like the first set of titles, alternatively, we can call this enterprise, “The Titties of Angels” and “Do hoor aur aunke babloan ka guroor”.

If you need more help with titillating (oops!! I meant titling ), I will be readily fawning at your service. Who does not like Bhatt’s on his resume? I will work free for a great mind like yours. I shall change my name to Dinesh, if that helps. Together we shall form a crack tag team, something along the lines of Mahesh – Dinesh (your name should be first sir…always!!)….very soon people might forget Salim-Javed.

We can deliver the greatest tits (oops!! I mean hits) to the entertainment industry.

We can, and we will usher in social revolution. Move over Shabana, Sunny is here and she does have two big things which demand a lot of space

The conversation speaks eons for mumbai and its ethos. In which other city in the world, would you get chai and diet coke served at 630 in the morning to yuppies like me, and to the day labourers….and also, where else would a person say sorry for running out of stock on a particular item.

"My kick the bucket" list

** 1. Scale Everest.** 2. Bike down to Leh3. Publish a work of fiction.** 4. Run a 42k Marathon.5. Do a 3 month Vipaasna course6. Motor down to Leh7. Visit the Golden Temple8. Watch a Roger Waters Concert9. Write a book of poems (not necessarily publish)

(** refers to items which the defeatist in me feels I shall never achieve.....)